The rollover of Tier 2 sponsorship certificates gets bigger every month, and according to the latest information from the UK Home Office there are 10,293 sponsorship certificates available for December.

In November 2010 the UK Government announced that it was introducing an annual limit on the number of Certificates of Sponsorship that could be issued for Tier 2 workers.

This came into effect on 6 April 2011 and only 20,700 certificates were made available under the new annual limit for the first year.   

The annual limit of 20,700 certificates of sponsorship (CoS) were divided in 12 monthly allocations. In April 2011, 4,200 certificate of sponsorship were made available and thereafter a monthly allocation of 1,500 places is being made available. Unused places are rolled over to the next month. 

The UK Border Agency operates the limit by not allowing any sponsor to issue a restricted CoS unless they first get permission using the monthly process. If the monthly allocation is over subscribed, the applications for certificates of sponsorship are ranked using a points system designed to favour jobs on the shortage occupation list, scientific researchers and higher salaries.  

All applications for restricted CoS must score a minimum of 32 points but applications are collate and prioritised, using the CoS allocation points table.  
 

Due to the roll-over system, this means that 10,293 certificates of sponsorship were available for allocation in December 2011. We can safely assume that due to the roll-over system there will once again be a substantial number of certificates available for January 2012.  

This is thus a golden opportunity for employers who would like to employ non-EU workers on the Tier 2 scheme!

If you are interested or would like to find out more about Tier 2 sponsorship, please contact Hannes Breytenbach at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it